Summary

Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” begins at the Festival of Summer in a city called Omelas. The people there have a procession involving music and dancing through the city streets toward the Green Fields meadow where naked children compete in a horse race. 

The city seems wonderful as people are kind and happy all the time, even though they are not naïve. These people have the things needed for a happy life. They have no king, slaves, or soldiers, and do not need wars to experience a sense of victory. 

As readers might find this hard to believe, the narrator invites them to imagine that these people might have orgies or take recreational drugs, that they might have a religion, but not temples or priests. Additionally, there is no sense of guilt among the people of ...